The Call (L'Appel)
2015 · 16m · France
Directed by Alban Ravassard
Genres: drama, horror, thriller
Tones: dark, melancholic, surreal
A grieving police lieutenant’s health unravels when his long-missing wife mysteriously resurfaces and he begins a strange transformation.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A cop's wife returns from the dead and he starts... what, melting? Ravassard treats grief like a contagion that rewires the body itself—no jump scares, no explanations, just a man watching himself become something else. Most festivals would demand clarity; this one earns its refusal.
The film's restraint situates it in a lineage of body-horror cinema that prizes psychological suggestion over spectacle, with editing that respects the viewer's discomfort rather than exploiting it. Ravassard's formal control transforms what could be exploitation into genuine unease.
That decision to keep the wife's return ambiguous—is she real, is he hallucinating—and then commit entirely to his physical transformation as the only true language in the film: that's the hinge. Everything else serves that single, devastating choice about what grief actually does.